a girl in my Spanish phonetics class asked me today if I was Russian. it was probably the coolest compliment i have gotten recently. Kinda weird though, because how many Russians have blond hair and blue eyes? and i don't exactly have a Russian accent, let alone speak more than, oh, six words of the language? But it was cool because we started talking about how Russian is all craaaazy. P=R? WTF. H=N? LIIIIES!!!!
isn't it weird when you walk into class one day halfway through the semester, or even at the FINAL, and you see someone you swear you have NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN THAT CLASS. always freaks me out. where am i???! and who the fuck are YOU?? how are you so nondescript that i stared at the back of your head for three months and still did not realize you exist?
i'm gonna buy some arm socks. oh my god--so here is this story. i bought some black knit leg warmers back in the day in high school and wore them on my arms because i only owned tank tops, no long-sleeved shirts or anything, and would always get all frickin' cold in the winter. my then-boyfriend (and most people) would make fun of me, and lance called them my "arm socks". I wanted to get some recently, and so googled them, and apparently it's a huge thing now. it's all quirky-trendy. which kinda pisses me off. but if i ever see lance again ima be like "arm socks are IN! so HA!"
oh and happiness: when i was in Otavalo, Ecuador, i bought a beautiful beautiful ring made from the type of shell that used to be used as money in South America. I lost it, however, just weeks after I got back to Boulder, and it always made me sad. but THEN, a few weeks ago when steve and i were going through and cleaning out my car (which sadly got totaled when a 16-year old kid with a 1-week old driver's license ran a red light and smashed into my poor corola), we FOUND it. i guess steve did, in this random little box in the car where i must've put it before martial arts one day and simply forgot. he handed it to me and i almost screamed in happiness. he told me later that five seconds after he gave it to me he thought of keeping it and proposing to me with it, which pretty much would have been fucking adorable.
god i totally broke down the other day. the impetus: i was walking to the bus stop from Espresso Roma on the Hill, and my friend Jenette was telling me some story about her roommates, and as we pass the Boulder Bookstore (where they removed the benches because of all the homeless guys that would sit there and stare creepily at the college chicks who walked past all day), this homeless dude sitting on the ground yells out "UM! LIKE! UM LIKE LIKE!" i was fucking pissed. i wish i had thought then of one of the many witty things i came up with later, but i really don't have quick reaction times to stuff like that. he wasn't even attacking ME, but i was offended by the fact that this guy whose life can be summed up with "spare any change?" is judging me. um, really? maybe you're right. maybe i should drop out of college, not get two degrees, not do linguistics research, quit my jobs, not pay my rent, not get a car, and sit on the corner begging for change and hassling college kids. but at least i wouldn't say 'like'! that would be worth it, don't you think? yes. you sir, are a role model.
then when i got home and told my boyfriend, his response was: "well you can see his point."
....
and "he's from a different generation."
hey, guess what! I'M from a different fucking generation. fun fact: language changes. additionally, i am actually fucking engaged in research with a PhD student and a linguistics professor about the quotative uses of 'like.' in short: "dear sir. eat shit and die."
another thing is that i have thought for HOURS about my speech and eloquence (or lack thereof, depending on who you are). I have never before in my LIFE received feedback that I sound unintelligent or uneducated when i speak or write. i have contintously made conscious, deliberate decisions to talk the way i do because i don't fucking put on a nice pretty little mask for the rest of the world. i write the way i talk and i talk the way i fucking feel like talking. i feel it's fake to talk differently in a class presentation than i do with my friends. and ALL the responses i've gotten have said "i like the way you talk/write. it's real. it's interesting." it allows me to engage my audience and connect with them because i don't sound as euriditic and snoooty as i would if i used prescriptivist grammar (which, as a linguist, i can tell you is WRONG) and sesquidipipilian words. (holy shit, i spelled that right first try.) also, i AM a fucking LINGUIST. i study language use, language change, uses of filler words, dialects and everything you can think of having to fucking do with the english language. but no, you're right, the homeless guy on the street could probably fill me in about that stuff. he is obviously superior to me and my ums. he could probably identify Turkish morphemes and Spanish allophones. he could probably speak Spanish, Chinese and Russian and get 2 degrees and work 2 jobs. but me? me and my ums, man.
that will be all.
